eems to be the only daughter of Jezebel. Though early
allied to Jehoshaphat and removed into the kingdom of Judah, she
retained all the idolatrous prepossessions of her father's house, and
she exhibited all the traits which marked her race. She possessed the
qualities which had been so prominently displayed by the course and life
of Jezebel. The same desperate will, the same determined energy, the
same daring courage and dauntless resolution, and the same proud
ambition; and she was even more devoid than her mother of all the kinder
feelings, affections, and sympathies.

Jezebel had resolutely crushed all those affections and sympathies of
her nature which would be likely to check her progress in her career of
crime and power. She had trampled upon all that would obstruct her in
the attainment of her object. Yet some of the feelings of the woman, the
tenderness of the wife, the fondness of the mother, still seem to linger
in her proud heart. Unprincipled as she was, she did not abandon herself
to utter selfishness. In her most atrocious acts she seems to have had
some regard to the aggrandizement of her family and to the gratification
of her husband. The daughter was more depraved than her mother. Athaliah
was utterly selfish, devoid even of the instinct of natural affection. A
character more revolting is not presented to us in the pages of the
historian, sacred or profane.

A woman rioting in blood that she might gratify her ambition! A mother
destroying her offspring that she might possess their inheritance!
Jezebel was a depraved woman, but Athaliah was a monster--a woman
destitute of all the feelings of humanity, working all evil, and only
evil, from the mere love of self. With selfish desires which absorbed
all consideration, and in their intensity prompted to unnatural crimes,
having no object in view beyond her personal gratification or
aggrandizement, there was not even the extenuation to be offered for
Athaliah which could be urged for Jezebel; for the policy of Judea was
opposed to idolatry, and in the family of Jehoshaphat she was surrounded
by influences most favourable to a virtuous course, and influences which
had never rested upon her mother. Under the very shadow of the Temple
she perpetrated her most flagrant crimes.

Although the depravity of Jezebel led her to adopt a corrupt religion,
to reject a pure and holy worship, and to cling to the dark and cruel
rites of heathenism, the voice of conscience